Addicted to Tequila

I mentioned in a previous post that my latest television obsession is the so-bad-it's-good A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila. My DVR currently holds all the episodes to date, and come tonight will get another one. I'm so excited!

No, but seriously. Around here we get together and watch it each week and are continually amazed by it always manages to outdo itself. I think just about the only thing left that would surprise me would be if someone got shanked during eliminations . . . you know what? That wouldn't even surprise me. At this point I expect it.

For those of you who actually have lives (and those that try really hard pretending to,) you might not know who or what Tila Tequila is. Lucky for you, I can sum up her entire life in one run-on sentence, here goes. Tila Tequila is a four-foot tall bug-eyed nude model with an amazing body and a goofy laugh who pretty much made a name for herself by being the number-one friend whore on everybody's favorite networking site: Myspace.com.

Bug-eyed, naked and all over the Interwebs.

The premise of the show is just as ridiculous as her "career." Tila, a long-time slut, has found her life of thousands of sexual encounters to be unfulfilling and is looking for love. Yes, LOVE. Like many other celebrities, finding love is easiest for Tila by moving 16 people into a mansion, keeping them drunk 24-7, and making them compete in humiliating contests, in which the losers of said contests end up getting eliminated. Man, sure beats a lifetime of soul searching and dating . . . These celebrities have it so easy.

By far you've gathered that it's pretty much the exact same premise as all of the other C-List celebrity dating shows out there, and it is, with one exception. Tila Tequila is bi-sexual, so on this show she's got men AND women competing for her "love."

Of course I put love in quotation marks because it's bullshit. Even a heartless cynic like myself who can count the amount of people I've said "I love you," to on one of Homer Simpson's hands knows that no one here is in love. But hey, these delusional frat boys and lesbians make for some damn good TV!

The appeal is really hard for me to pinpoint exactly . . . I mean, arousal from watching girls makeout is something that I outgrew when I realized that getting two girls to kiss was about as difficult as making toast. And seeing the female contestants prance around half naked can't be it, either, because even before they started getting eliminated the girls were only about 40% as hot as the girls on other reality shows . . . There's the fights, I do enjoy those, and there's already been several.

I suppose it's just the way the show so unabashedly embraces everything that is awful about reality television in each one-hour episode. There is a reason that reality TV has become so popular, and it's because people love the escapism of watching other people's "problems." Nothing can get rid of the feelings brought on by a shitty day at work quicker than watching some clown eat Rocky Mountain Oysters while wearing a Speedo all in the name of love.

It's good stuff, really.

This is my plug for A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila. A show that I shouldn't love, but do. And a show that you probably don't watch, but should.

Giftmas

Pretty much from the time you can walk, up until you're old enough to buy cigarettes, Christmas TOTALLY kicks ass. The combination of gifts and a lengthy vacation from school make it the best thing ever. Over the years I've still managed to maintain some level of excitement about the holidays, mostly by trying to hold onto what made it so exciting when I was a little kid.

This past weekend was an unexpected jump start to the season for me. Not only was EVERYONE in town, but I went shopping on Friday and enjoyed the unexpected snowfall on Saturday. Now I'm ready trees, lights, lavish gifts, and gluttony.

The snow as seen from the passenger's seat of my father's Jeep.

Even as I've gotten older I've strayed away from asking for "practical" gifts. Sure, sweaters and pants are great, but nothing beats a ridiculously fun gift that really don't need. Three years ago I wanted Metal Gear Solid 3 and Metroid Prime 2. Two years ago, I asked for the original Guitar Hero and an extra guitar. Last year it was the Wii and Twilight Princess. Take a look at this year's totally awesome and totally unnecessary gift:

Please excuse my mediocre cellphone-photography skills.

Yes, that's what you think it is--Rock Band for PS3. The lucky winner of the Gift That Still Manages to Make Me Feel Like A Kid Award for 2007. Lugging this bulky, 40lb son of a bitch around the mall for an hour wasn't fun, but the resulting hernia will be totally worth it when I get to try to simultaneously drum and sing R.E.M.'s Orange Crush come Christmas morning. Yes!

If all this sounds a little materialistic, it's probably because it is. Having never subscribed to any of the religious aspects of the holidays, the season is pretty much just fond memories of giving and receiving gifts. There's also lights, food, family, the occasional snowfall, candy canes, and TV Christmas specials. Think of everything that Charlie Brown hated about Christmas and you'll get a good idea of what it is that I love about it.

I'll leave you with this photo of my three-foot-tall tree, as it illuminates my apartment with the electric-synthetic joys of Christmas that we all should embrace.

Anything Box

For the past few weeks, the only disc that's been spinning in my 360 is The Orange Box. For those of you who aren't in the know, The Orange Box is Valve's love letter (or love package?) to FPS fans everywhere. It's a collection of five games, all of which could easily be packaged and sold separately and make Valve truckloads of money. When describing all that you get by purchasing this collection, I get so enthusiastic that it's hard for me not to sound like the guy on TV hawking Magic Bullets at 3 AM. It's SO GOOD and you get SO MUCH for money.

I completed Half-Life 2, and Portal, and I've put in a little bit of time with Team Fortress 2. All of which are brilliant, but so far the real stand out has been Portal. It's an extremely short and extremely satisfying first-person puzzle game. It's like a nugget made with the finest quality of meats, although unlike most nuggets, it really is satisfying. It's three-hour life span ensures that the game (which is built around a single concept) never gets old. It's an experience that you really must experience, and one that anyone with the necessary hardware to run it would be stupid to pass up.

I feel that Valve's generosity towards gamers is going to spoil us in the long run. Think about it . . . All the overweight virginal gamers eagerly drop $60 on a single product that gets them less than 10 hours of entertainment. Yeah, gamers do that OFTEN. In my case, once or twice a month. But depending on the age, weight, and number of years gone without touching a woman, that figure could increase to three, four, or even FIVE games a month!

Now that's a damn shame . . .

I know it's unlikely, but I hope that Valve's experiment in value and quality OF quantity sends a message to the rest of the industry to stop sticking their dicks in our collective asses and show us some respect.

The spirit of The Box has me giddy, and when I'm giddy I enjoy posting blogs with lists. So! Here I've put together a list of the most famous boxes in the history of boxes. Enjoy!


5. I actually hate this particular box, but its fame cannot be denied. Since 1951, Jack in the Box "restaurants" have been fattening Americans with its over-priced mayonnaise-laden menu. Seriously, they put mayo on the motherfucking breakfast sandwiches! Pardon me while I go throw up at the thought of eating an egg and cheese biscuit with mayonnaise on it.






4. In addition to ditching a boy band, making two amazingly successful and equally amazing albums, and fucking Jessica Biel, Mr. Timberlake thought he needed to prove to us again how awesome he is with an SNL skit. The Dick in a Box video became and Internet/pop culture phenomenon and even won an Emmy . . .or a Grammy. Or an Oscar. Who knows, but that video sure is hilarious.



3. Sure, you can say that me listing Microsoft inaugural gaming device as a cop out, or bias, but then I'll just give you the finger. One could argue that the 360 is more famous, but you can't deny the impact of this monstrosity here. The 87-pound beast came equipped with a hard-drive, four controller ports, and all the network gizmos necessary to bring online gaming to us console folk. I still have mine!





2. Having a shitty day? Well, you can blame this bitch. According to myth, Pandora here was beside herself with curiosity when told not to open a box by a deity or something. Having no self control, she opened it anyways and let loose a set of evil, plagues, death, and destruction upon the world. The legend doesn't say, but I'm sure rush-hour traffic, waiting in line at the bank, and those decals of Calvin peeing on various logos were in the box, too. Thanks a lot, Pandora.


1. OK, don't pretend like you weren't expecting this. The Orange Box is sooooo fucking good that I simply couldn't resist mentioning it again. Five games! Five fucking amazing games! Stop reading this nonsense and go buy the fucking thing already.

Vertically Scheduled

When I first created this blog as an alternative to the voyeurism and self-importance that is Myspace.com I had good intentions of keeping it up to date. But like most endeavors I pursue these days, my efforts have been half-assed at best. Since my last update, a whole SHIT LOAD of stuff has happened--so here goes:

My friend Richard and I moved into an apartment together a few weeks ago, and so far the results have been somewhat of a mixed bag. Living with Richard is great; so don't go mad with the prospect of gossip, those of you who know Mr. Rodriguez, but there have been a few other issues . . . First of all, getting the Internet hooked up has been a battle worthy of a Tolkein novel movie adaptation. The motherfuckers over at Time Warner have their heads so far up their asses I'm amazed that they haven't sunk themselves into chapter eleven. I'm serious. Getting put on hold, and transferred, and put on hold again, and transferred to a guy named Fernando, then switched back to some woman, etc., etc . . . Now multiply that scenario by two weeks and raise it to a power of frustration capable of launching you into a murderous rampage and you'll get an idea of how I feel. It's sad to admit a dependency on the Internet, but you know what? That's just how it is today. I don't only use it for Halo/Team Fortress 2 playing, but for communication, and podcast listening, and hardcore pornography downloading, and so on. Today is the first day it has been working, and I'm crossing my fingers that it doesn't fuck up again.

In addition to the Internet Wars of 2007, we have began a squirmish with our downstairs neighbor. PIcture the most awful, buzzed headed, ex-military tattooed white trash dad in the universe, and you have our neighbor. You see, I suppose either the shell shock of war or several years of raising SHITTY kids has made our "friend" very sensative to noise. The first night we had everything all set up we had a few friends over. We didn't have the TV in the living room yet, so we instead played my iPod in one of those little speaker dock things. Well, the next day, Colonel Tattoo stops Rich and I and tells us to keep it down. Ok . . . whatever. Fast forward two weeks, we have some more people over. This time we have the TV in the living room and the surround sound set up. Anyways, the kids come over and we start watching Entourage (brilliant show, by the way,) and all of the sudden it sounds like our floor is going to collapse out from underneath us. Apparently General Dickhead thought it was too loud, and in his combative conditioned response decided to bang THE SHIT out of his cieling. Not once, not twice, but SIX TIMES! It shook the couch I was sitting on. Ok, I know Richard's speakers have the ability to to be ass-rockingly loud, but we were watching Entourage. Not motherfucking Transformers or something. Jesus. I hate his face and his ugly kids.

What else is new . . . well there's the Halo 3 thing. I suppose not supplying the interwebs with more material about "the most successful entertainment product" in history makes me a terrible person, gamer, and even a worse blogger. Halo 3 is an amazing game, but it isn't the industry-changing experience that Combat Evolved was. The single player campaign is exceptionally fun, yet laughably short. The real value comes from the multiplayer, which is really more like a competitive sport than a videogame. But yeah, if you have a 360 and enjoy a good round of shooting, pick it up.

In other news, two weeks ago was the insane Daft Punk/Vegoose music festival in Las Vegas. By a combination of chance and personal awesomeness, I managed to see both Daft Punk's first US show (Coachella '06) and their last (this here Vegoose thing.) Being pushed up against so many shirtless, dirty, sweaty hippies may have given me a mild case of ringworm, but I don't care. It was AMAZING! Those of you that are unfamiliar with the work of this Parisian robot duo are doing yourself a GREAT disservice. Go buy the Discovery album and look on Youtube.com for some videos of their live performances. The rest of the weekend was amazing, too. Walking around and drinking yards of stawberry daquiri while occassionally stopping to shop/watch a water ballet was a blast.

That's about all I've got so far. I need to head out to my teacher classes pretty soon. Hopefully tonight will end early enough for me to catch the new Tila Tequila. Yeah . . . I know. Don't say anything.